Does anyone actually enjoy engineering?

[Ethaidan]

I don't know where you're getting from that I can't stand seeing other people having fun using their own play style. That's simply wrong not to mention absurd. I'm not out looking for a fight.

Well, you do seem to get very wound up and defensive when people speak of different approaches.

The reason for my reaction is really simple and explained by me many times. If you don't have first hand experience with a certain play style then you don't have experience with the game play that accompanies it. Having fun using your own style? Cool man. Without experiencing other game play styles yourself but telling others to not play that way, since you don't have that problem, is downright stupid.

But I do, and so do many others - you presume too much. When it comes to engineering, I learned fairly quickly that trying to speed rush toward some ever elusive goal - just one more ship/weapon combination - with a singular focus on gathering specific mats and flying all over the bubble (pre-3.0 remote) may be a quicker way to finish (max) a ship, but ED engineering was clearly not designed for that approach be spectacularly fun (at all), and I didn't enjoy it. So, I reevaluated what I wanted from ED (and how quickly) and adapted my approach, to engineering, to better suit the game environment. Personally, I find that far more rational and satisfying (fun), than constantly raging at the tide and demanding the game change to suit my personal whims. It may have taken me longer than min/max efficiency zealots, but I do have 9.5 fully G5 engineered ships - more than I now have time to properly enjoy.

Am I stupid for being so zealous and wasting my time. Yes I am. But looking backwards I'd rather be that idiot then tagging something as an exploit/cheat, that it's unintended and that you shouldn't be using it. Especially considering it was Frontier themselves that deliberately made this happen the way it is to facilitate the grind for mats.

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything I've posted in this thread. I'm guessing it's about whether relogging is an exploit? I've not weighed in on this at all. However, stating that FDev deliberately did this to facilitate a particular grind - that's a pretty sweeping assumption. I can see why some might think this, but when it came to board flipping (which people also ssumed was a 'deliberate mechanic') they actually stated it was unintended, and eventually found a solution (to the problem on their end). As for people relogging for mats or to reset Guardian sites, meh.

 

[CMDR Redcrest]

The process needs some work for sure.
I've stopped playing for a while while I re-examine what I want to be doing in the game.
I think when I do boot up I'll go looking at the various phenomena that have been found. Try out the new combat and Thargoid zones then probably take another break until there's something new to do.
The main thing that kills engineering for me is 1-5ing every module. As it stands, and has always been, engineering feels artificially inflated to take longer. Slightly less so now but it's still the case. Why else would trading a g5 material for another g5 material be at an exchange rate of 6:1?
Down To Earth Astronomy's video on relogging for a specific signal source, while functional, turns gameplay into a chore.
The engineering process improved this last year no doubt. It still has a way to go so it feels like it flows as part of the game.

It also doesn't help me wanting to play that since the voice attack update I keep getting VA saying "command not available in supercruise" while I'm in normal space. Work is hectic just now and I can't bring myself to dive into this to figure out what is going wrong. Maybe when I get my next fortnight off I'll have the get up n go to get up n investigate!

 

[Muetdhiver]

Yeah. Especially for the exploration ships and iCourrier speed combat builds.

 

[Blackcompany]

Look at it from the other angle. No engineering. No collecting materials. No experiencing other play styles in the game to unlock the engineers. What would you be doing? Probably complaining on the Forum because ED is galaxy wide but only a meter deep. Hmm...There were a few threads about this in the past.

Engineers dont add depth. Just tedium.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Congrats for just having found the entry level of echo chambers!
That said, I admit I also have 4 clowns in my ignore bin. Self-defence as I care about my mental health...

I used to have two but one redeemed himself. Is still a fanboi, but quite sensible. I think they mature with time.

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

Bob is oblivious to your woes. Use block feature, it works really well. You'll be like zen master to Bob answers.

I tried that for a bit. It was quite amusing watching threads turn from sensible discussions to cyclic remonstration apparently by themselves. I expect the chatbot developers study this phenomenon.

I don't block anyone anymore, it got too confusing. I am easily confused. Probably comes with being old and grumpy.

 

[777Driver]

Engineers dont add depth. Just tedium.

Of course it adds depth, this forum amazes me sometimes.. The unlock requirements are shallow, but the actual engineering part has a huge amount of depth. Engineers allows us to modify and experiment with the massive amount of variables behind each ship and it's systems.

I enjoy reading constructive feedback on this forum, but your comment shows just how bitter and ridiculous some jaded cmdrs have become, all because the game isn't what they want it to be. Heck I'd like DCS in space, combined with the best parts of X3TC and Star citizen, am old enough to realise I don't always get what I want.

 

[umbabrahattasil]

That's an exploit I never really understood. I thinking logging out and back in (over and over) just to get extra missions is more of a grind than actually flying a few extra "laps" for the same number of missions. Never used that exploit myself - ironically it's often more fun to play the game to get the rewards. Well, at least for me.

Now finding two systems that hand out rank missions like candy (for the terrible grind required to unlock certain ships and planets), there's a exploit game mechanic that I proudly take advantage of

Do you relog when gathering engineering materials? Like Dav’s Hope or the crashed Annie or whatever? I find a lot of people say they never relog and board flipping wasn’t needed or an exploit, but yet they relog for engineering mats which is the exact same thing. Lol.

 

[Old Duck]

Do you relog when gathering engineering materials? Like Dav’s Hope or the crashed Annie or whatever? I find a lot of people say they never relog and board flipping wasn’t needed or an exploit, but yet they relog for engineering mats which is the exact same thing. Lol.

Nope. Read my posts about Engineering earlier in this thread, and you'll see that I don't take it seriously enough to want or need to relog. And now with the material trader, I've got all the materials I need

Though I do relog on occasion to reset all the stars that disappear since 3.3 dropped... But bugs don't count!

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Do you relog when gathering engineering materials? Like Dav’s Hope or the crashed Annie or whatever? I find a lot of people say they never relog and board flipping wasn’t needed or an exploit, but yet they relog for engineering mats which is the exact same thing. Lol.

It is a very fair point. I won't lie and say I have never done it but doing it did almost make me quit the game so I stopped quickly. It is pants game design a) being able to do it and b) feeling you need to do it. Even FD encouraged it tho with the barnacle CG. I refuse to believe there is not an other way however and it can't be done better without feeling forced to cheese the game

 

[ifthisworks]

In reply to OP question, no, and I think ED would be better without it.

CZ with the ships having lots of engineering now is just tedious - they don't fly any better, it just takes longer to take their hull down to zero - it adds nothing to gameplay or fun. Maybe fun if your ship is g5 maxed out on everything, but who has time to do that - only grinders love the grind, nobody else does.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

It is a very fair point. I won't lie and say I have never done it but doing it did almost make me quit the game so I stopped quickly. It is pants game design a) being able to do it and b) feeling you need to do it. Even FD encouraged it tho with the barnacle CG. I refuse to believe there is not an other way however and it can't be done better without feeling forced to cheese the game

From what I understand from guardian modules, before the requirements were reduced, relogging was the only way of realistically unlocking blueprint data. It does look like they are moving away from this type of gameplay though.

Agree though. My usual approach with engineering is to gather materials naturally and pick up the odd g5 in hge when I'm in the mood. At this point I'd rather have a g3/4 engineered ship than do any more grinds.

 

[Stigbob]

From what I understand from guardian modules, before the requirements were reduced, relogging was the only way of realistically unlocking blueprint data. It does look like they are moving away from this type of gameplay though.

Agree though. My usual approach with engineering is to gather materials naturally and pick up the odd g5 in hge when I'm in the mood. At this point I'd rather have a g3/4 engineered ship than do any more grinds.

People said that, you could grab two or three an hour by visiting different sites though, which was much more fun. Its much easier now.

 

[zipline]

I love engineering and don't mind the material grind as that is part of the enjoyment to me. I don't love some of the grind to unlock engineers though... just doing Lei Cheung at the moment ... trade at 50 markets ... I'd only done 7 ... been at it for most of my playtime today (did Dweller also) and still have 15 more trades to do tomorrow ... grrrrr.

 

[Speedcuffs]

People said that, you could grab two or three an hour by visiting different sites though, which was much more fun. Its much easier now.

[video=youtube_share;hFDcoX7s6rE]https://youtu.be/hFDcoX7s6rE[/video]
[yesnod]

 

[D3rv1sh]

From what I understand from guardian modules, before the requirements were reduced, relogging was the only way of realistically unlocking blueprint data. It does look like they are moving away from this type of gameplay though.

Agree though. My usual approach with engineering is to gather materials naturally and pick up the odd g5 in hge when I'm in the mood. At this point I'd rather have a g3/4 engineered ship than do any more grinds.

What it looks like to me is that they can't make up their mind and keep contradicting themselves. Settlements like Dav's Hope that stimulate re-logging for the mats to re-spawn so you can farm more in one location. On top of that they removed the two week re-spawn timer for the data point at Dav's Hope. Now why would they do that? It seems deliberate to facilitate mat grinding. Even though the sites don't provide G5 materials, they still provide much needed engineering materials. On the other hand they keep the re-spawn timer for geological locations at two weeks. This to motivate visiting other geological locations. I don't see any other reason for it. I don't understand why they are not doing the same when it comes to obtaining engineering mats. There's a contradiction here.

Just because I re-log to grind mats in what's for me the least painful way, doesn't mean I like it one bit. I am in favor of having these methods removed. But they should be replaced by more activities that do not involve re-logging. I already suggested something in another thread. We get these random requests from factions through the comms to locate a crash site or fetch some data. All of which offer utter garbage rewards. To make those interesting they should be rewarding you with G5 data/materials which you can use in engineering. Another example. Besides space USS we have random planet side POI's. I don't mean the random mission based POI's. Just the ones that are randomly generated when you scour the planet's surface. I have not had one random planet side POI, where I had the feeling that the reward was worth the effort of even driving there in my SRV. Crashed probes offer garbage rewards. Not a single useful piece of data. Another missed opportunity here where you can do something else besides USS to get materials. I think random planet side POI's should offer engaging game play with good material rewards in return.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

What it looks like to me is that they can't make up their mind and keep contradicting themselves. Settlements like Dav's Hope that stimulate re-logging for the mats to re-spawn so you can farm more in one location. On top of that they removed the two week re-spawn timer for the data point at Dav's Hope. Now why would they do that? It seems deliberate to facilitate mat grinding. Even though the sites don't provide G5 materials, they still provide much needed engineering materials. On the other hand they keep the re-spawn timer for geological locations at two weeks. This to motivate visiting other geological locations. I don't see any other reason for it. I don't understand why they are not doing the same when it comes to obtaining engineering mats. There's a contradiction here.

Just because I re-log to grind mats in what's for me the least painful way, doesn't mean I like it one bit. I am in favor of having these methods removed. But they should be replaced by more activities that do not involve re-logging. I already suggested something in another thread. We get these random requests from factions through the comms to locate a crash site or fetch some data. All of which offer utter garbage rewards. To make those interesting they should be rewarding you with G5 data/materials which you can use in engineering. Another example. Besides space USS we have random planet side POI's. I don't mean the random mission based POI's. Just the ones that are randomly generated when you scour the planet's surface. I have not had one random planet side POI, where I had the feeling that the reward was worth the effort of even driving there in my SRV. Crashed probes offer garbage rewards. Not a single useful piece of data. Another missed opportunity here where you can do something else besides USS to get materials. I think random planet side POI's should offer engaging game play with good material rewards in return.

Definitely with you on about random missions. Probes too, the one (and only after that) time I scanned one I got 2 g1 pieces of data. Less than I got scanning ships on the way to the planet.

I'd also add 'tip offs' to this as well. Travelling 200ly for 600000cr? These do seem broken anyway, but surely the fix would be some g5 mats considering how rare these are.

I'd definitely have no issue with adding more risky things to do with good rewards for those willing to try them. I wouldn't want these mats to easier to get, but I agree there needs to more ways to get them.

 

[Kaocraft]

People said that, you could grab two or three an hour by visiting different sites though, which was much more fun. Its much easier now.

Maybe if you look it all up on the internet and follow a step by step guide saying "go here, do this, then this, then this, and use this ship with this build," but for "regular" players it's going to be a whole different story.

From start to finish (finding the sites, figuring out what to do, figuring out how to do it, etc) it took me over 16 hours to get ONE blueprint. Subsequent sites still took over an hour each just to figure out the layout, the proper "key," fighting the sentinels, etc, and after around 20 hours and 4 sites (repeating sites in some cases) I still don't have the materials to unlock ANYTHING. I also don't have much in the way of real leads for how to find new sites or beacons (going to check the handful of blue dots in the galmap and see what comes of it), so who knows when anything will come of this venture.

I don't blame anyone AT ALL for relogging to acquire more materials. It seems like the materials you get, apart from the blueprints themselves, are random anyway. I'm supposed to get 21 Guardian Tech components for the FSD booster but for some reason even though it's only a G2 material I've only ever acquired one of them while other items (which I don't need or want) are piling up. At first I thought maybe they were found in some different kind of site or something but nope - turns out they are one of the many random drops you can get from shooting off those breakable panels, and for some reason they're just not appearing. The "smart" thing to do is absolutely to keep relogging and shooting those panels because if the RNG is skewed in the wrong direction you'll effectively NEVER get enough of what you need by doing things the "right" way.

I'm going to keep playing the game spoiler free and in "good faith" to see what comes of it, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else, but I have to say so far the entire project feels like a dead end at this point.

Anyway: looking things up on the internet, as well as relogging, are in my opinion both forms of "soft" cheating. If you want to play the game in good faith, you should avoid both. At the same time, it really is important for the designers to ensure that they build their game in such a way as to accommodate both of these playstyles, and Elite has mostly been a big fail in both areas, though the addition of the Codex and the changes to exploration are a huge step in the right direction and at least give me hope.

 

[Gorr]

I've made a long break before Engineeres were added, and I had a really great time unlocking them all.
I remember that was the first time I actually outfitted mining ship and did everything properly... and I enjoyed it a lot.

Some aspects I haven't enjoyed that much, like dealing with Rares... but experience as a whole was positive. Locations like Dave's Hope lessen the frustration of getting needed mats, and now with material traders I think they are in a good spot.

The thing I really DON'T LIKE is the fact that they've killed any kind of personalization and feeling that you have something unique.

You know, that God roll after you have spent like 2 weeks of farming materials and you finally feel it was worth it because not many people have something like that.

I really hope they will bring this back in the future but in other form (probably less impactfull like those crazy rolled Railguns with almost no heat generated).

 

[Stigbob]

Maybe if you look it all up on the internet and follow a step by step guide saying "go here, do this, then this, then this, and use this ship with this build," but for "regular" players it's going to be a whole different story.

From start to finish (finding the sites, figuring out what to do, figuring out how to do it, etc) it took me over 16 hours to get ONE blueprint. Subsequent sites still took over an hour each just to figure out the layout, the proper "key," fighting the sentinels, etc, and after around 20 hours and 4 sites (repeating sites in some cases) I still don't have the materials to unlock ANYTHING. I also don't have much in the way of real leads for how to find new sites or beacons (going to check the handful of blue dots in the galmap and see what comes of it), so who knows when anything will come of this venture.

Speak for yourself I wrote a guide on it. Nowhere near sixteen hours. Twenty five minutes out, twenty minutes to do the unlock maybe five minutes to a new one. Thats without relogging. There's no mystery key its just a relic.

Even quicker now.